Friday, April 23, 2010

"NO!" An old fat scribbler who wandered into Fort Hunt Park and somebody gave the microphone to.

To paraphrase George Patton, I thought I'd stand up here and give y'all a chance to see if I'm as big and bad a "mad dog militia terrorist" as Rachel Madcow, Chris Matthews, Jonah Goldberg, Michael Medved and Billy Jeff Clinton say that I am.

You know I'm grateful to them for all the free publicity, especially from ole Billy Jeff. You know, when you're denounced by a serial perjurer that has special meaning, and you know that you have arrived. But there's one thing I want to straighten out right here and now. Billy Jeff says that we are, we Three Percenters, are "unhinged and disgruntled." But that's not true. You see this? (Holds up a small gate hinge) Here's my hinge. All right? So I am not "unhinged." I have my hinge. You notice? There's three holes in each side.

Now as far as being "disgruntled," I am reliably informed that in the Commonwealth of Virginia it is illegal to show your "gruntle" in public. That being the case, and if it's true in Virginia it must be true in Alabama, and I intend to go back to Alabama and live my life in peace for as long as God gives me, you ain't gonna see my "gruntle." That's between me and Rosey, my beautiful wife, so I don't care what Bill Clinton says.

Now as they said, my name is Mike Vanderboegh and I'm a Three Percenter. George Washington was a Three Percenter. Three percent of the population of the American colonies took the field against the King in the American Revolution. They were actively supported by another ten percent of the population with another twenty percent for the Revolution but willing to do no more than just say "rah, rah." Another third of the population supported the King. In fact, by the end of the war there were more American colonists in the forces of the King than there were in the forces of the Revolution. And the other third of the population blew with the wind and took what came. Kind of like today.

As I say, my name is Mike Vanderboegh but lately I could be mistaken for Emmanuel Goldstein of the "Two Minute Hate" in George Orwell's 1984. Everybody I think wants to hate me. I think it's because across the political spectrum I scare them. I don't know why. I mean, I'm just a fat old scribbler who's got congestive heart failure and diabetic feet. Maybe it's the cane.

But, no, seriously I understand why. I understand why I scare them. I understand why YOU scare 'em. And understand that -- YOU. SCARE. THEM. The people who put up the "We Are Everywhere" stickers. The people who threw some Three Percent bricks through some local political party windows. They scare them. They scare the bejeezus out of 'em. And I'll tell you why.

My call to break the windows of local Democrat party headquarters, even though it was answered by just a few people across the country from New York to Alaska, caused the talking heads to begin denouncing me in prime time, and I started receiving death threats by phone and email, and some fellow from Virginia claiming to be Dick Cheney sent me a powdery substance in an Easter card. . . You know there must be a special place in Hell for people who profane Easter cards.

But the fact that I called on folks to start pushing back -- pushing back against the last 75 years where it is WE who have been pushed back from the natural exercise of our liberties -- of our God-given, inalienable, natural liberties. . . It scared these political mandarins. It scared these elitists. They believe that they know what's best for us.

But it is in fact our own fault that we are in this situation. Each time these revolutionists of gradualism cut another piece off of the Founders' Republic, off of the Constitution, each time we backed up, grumbling, but we didn't shove back. We have not shoved back. So, why should we expect that they're going to quit shoving?

By calling for this limited campaign against the windows of local political offices, I hoped to make them understand that this situation was coming to a fundamental break where people -- the guilty and innocent alike -- were going to begin dying for their own stupid failure to comprehend the real situation that we are all in.

For wars are always started by people who think they won't start, that they can't start. They are started, usually by clueless, arrogant, grasping people, people with a hunger for power, no matter how they cloak it in good intentions -- people who believe they have a right to tell other folks how to live, what to buy, where to go, how to act and insist that they pay for the privilege, that WE pay for the privilege, and that WE like it or lump it. They start the wars, these wannabe tyrants, because they think they can get away with it, they think that they will not be opposed, or that the opposition will be minimal. They start them because they think that in starting them there will be no PERSONAL consequences for them for starting it.

This is what i was trying to accomplish with my call to break a few windows. I was trying to get the attention of people -- who are pushing this country toward civil war -- that they should stop before somebody gets hurt.

This is also the theme of my novel, Absolved. It is titled after this quote from John Locke that the Founders embraced:

“Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.”

Writing about the fictional run-up to a civil war, I am trying to avoid a real one. I hope people will read Absolved and class it as a "useful dire warning" as David Brin calls the genre. By warning folks of the unintended consequences of their actions, I hope to avoid them myself.

And, oh, by the way, for those of you who have been flogging me about when Absolved will be done -- here it is. (Holds up a thumb drive.) My part is done, and it will be sent off to the editor and publisher next week.

But whatever I have written over the past few years -- including my call to adopt the tactics of the Sons of Liberty of old and break windows -- this is my motive: I want to avoid a civil war -- the worst of all wars -- because I know from history what one looks like and they are the sum of all evils.

For this is what the other side does not understand. This is what the forces of the King of England did not understand on 19th of April 1775.

WE ARE DONE BACKING UP.

Done!

Not one more inch!

You know, years ago I was a civil war re-enactor and one Sunday coming back from an event, two friends and I stopped at a gas station in a little Mississippi town.

When we pulled up, there was a big guy there, missing a few teeth, who was whipping a dog with a busted fan belt. (And it wasn't even his dog.) All the poor dog could do was cringe and yelp. I was driving and I pulled up to the pump. We didn't know it but someone inside the station -- not wanting to get personally involved -- had called the cops, but it was Sunday and the nearest Sheriff's car was miles away. In fact, they didn't get there while were there. They told us. They thanked us. But they didn't want to get involved.

We hadn't been stopped for more than a few seconds when my buddy Chris, who was about half the size of the dog-whipper, took it all in with a glance and said, to no one in particular, "Oh, HELL NO!"

Any of you from the South, you probably know what that means. "Oh, HELL NO!"

Just three words: "Oh, HELL NO!" It was an observation. It was an announcement. It was a battle cry. And without further ado Chris launched himself across that parking lot -- and he's only about half the size of this toothless fellow -- and he stripped that broken fan belt out of his hand and he commenced to whaling on the guy. Of course, the two of us were looking pretty rough from a weekend and it's Sunday -- all grizzled and dirty and dressed in funny clothes -- and we go to back him up. When this fellow starts to recover -- and he decides, "Hey, I'm bigger than this guy, I'm gonna beat him" -- and then he sees the two of us coming up, he decides that he's had enough and he jumped in his car and drove off.

Now this is a quintessentially Southern thing, this "Oh, HELL NO!" All right? You gotta say it just like that. Let's practice it. "Oh, HELL NO!" The accent's on the "HELL!"

All right?

It is indeed a uniquely AMERICAN thing. When you hear it -- where I come from -- you know that somebody's gonna get beat, stabbed or shot. And the guy who takes the beating, the knife blade or the bullet undoubtedly deserves it.

"Oh, HELL NO!"

For you can push Americans only so far.

There is a great truth in the movie Michael Collins, where the Irish freedom fighter, played by Liam Neeson, is speaking to an election crowd in 1918. He tells them, in part:

"They can jail us. They can shoot us. . . BUT . . . we have a weapon more powerful than any in the whole arsenal of the British Empire! That weapon is our refusal! Our refusal to bow to any order but our own! Any institution but our own!"

This is a great truth, this is an enduring truth. For no one can be enslaved without giving his permission. Whether out of fear, out of cowardice, out of a desire to not be "confrontational" -- the slave gives his assent to his master.

But we are AMERICANS.

We are the folks who say, "Oh, HELL NO!"

This is something that the enemies of the Founders' Republic do not understand. They extrapolate from their own cowardice and, knowing that they themselves have no principles for which they are willing to die -- life being the most important thing to them -- they cannot fathom that there are other people who are certainly willing to die for a principle. And i think I see some of them here today.

And so, because they cannot understand folks who have an entirely different worldview from them, folks who do not believe that the government should have the supreme power over the people -- folks who believe like the Founders that government should be small, safe and limited -- because they cannot understand us, they call us names, they try to marginalize us, and they think that we are merely posturing, that we will never seriously push back against their infringements of our liberty.

Which brings us to today. What is it about law-abiding American citizens, exercising their God-given and inalienable right to arms, announcing their adherence to the ancient concept of righteous self defense -- folks who believe that a right un-exercised is a right that has been lost -- what is it that so excites our opponents to condemn us, to vilify us, to try to marginalize us, indeed, to seek to disarm us?

It is this. . .

It is only CITIZENS who have arms.

Serfs, indentured servants and slaves do not. Bearing arms is the mark of a citizen, and the elitists who run the various parties, as one corrupt administration follows another, find citizens extremely inconvenient to their plans. You must CONVINCE citizens -- by force of argument, by appeals to reason or fact or even emotion -- but you must CONVINCE them. You cannot order them about as serfs.

For CITIZENS have arms, and citizens can say, and after a long train of abuses and usurpations, "Oh, HELL NO!"

AND WATCH OUT WHEN THEY DO.

Gentlemen and ladies and Nancy Pelosi too.

WATCH OUT WHEN WE DO.

The ability to say "No!" is the difference between a free man or free woman and a slave. Slaves cannot say "No!" and remain slaves. Indeed, over the long span of history, this is how slaves ennobled themselves and freed themselves -- by saying "No!" and meaning it -- regardless of all dangers, regardless even if it meant their deaths. They said "No!" and became free, even if for an instant. Finally, throwing off their yokes, they died as Spartacus and his followers, as free men and free women.

It's a funny thing about this word "no." The collectivists have taken to calling the GOP, "the party of no." Probably because they never heard a Southener say, "Oh, HELL NO!"

I don't know where they've been these past fifteen years, but in my experience the GOP is the party of "well, you know, you'd better not do that, but if you insist, then well, okay, we'll just catch up in the next election cycle."

Pat Buchanan had at least this much right: the two dominant political parties have acted as two wings of the same bird of prey.

And so it has fallen to the people, to the Tea Parties, to the Open Carry movement, and all the other manifestations of righteous resistance to cumulative tyranny to say, "Oh, HELL NO!"

You can say that, right? "Oh, HELL NO?"

"Oh, HELL NO!"

That's getting better.

You'll have to work on it, though.

This is as the Founders intended it. It is why they left us the Second Amendment. Not that we derive our natural, God-given rights from a piece of paper, however much revered. That piece of paper merely codifies that which cannot be taken away without our consent. They may change what it says on the piece of paper, but that does not change the eternal truth of liberty.

And it sure doesn't prevent men and women -- free men and free women -- from saying, "Oh, HELL NO!"

And that exclamation point is important. If you say "no" softly, tentatively, apologetically, some people -- obtuse, arrogant, greedy, evil people people -- take it as a "maybe." Some of them take it as a "yes."

You know the anti-rape activists have popularized the saying of "No means no" -- as if chanting it like a mantra somehow provides potential rape victims with magical powers. But I tell you, when someone says "No means no" and says it while packing a firearm to back up the sentiment, the argument is OVER.

So we who intend to remain free must say it -- as I think we are all saying it here today -- Loudly. Proudly. Emphatically.

"NO!"

We must say it as the Spartans did at Thermopylae.

"NO!"

We must say it as did the Jews at Masada.

"NO!"

We must shout it as the Texans did in defiance at the Alamo and in triumph at San Jacinto.

"NO!"

We must scream it as the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto did 67 years ago today.

"NO!"

We must say it calmly but forcefully like the veterans of the Deacons for Defense and Justice said it to the Klan when they guarded the advocates of non-violence -- with the muzzles of their MILITARY rifles and their MILITARY pistols that they brought home from their service in America's wars -- and said to the Klan.

"NO! You will not kill today!"

We must shout it as the veterans of McMinn County, Tennessee said it in 1946, as they prevented a corrupt political machine and its bully-boy sheriff from stealing another election in the "Battle of Athens."

"NO!"

We must say it as the Founders did at Lexington and Concord and on the long, bloody road strewn with dead King's men back into Boston.

35 comments:

I wish I could have been there to hear you speak. Thanks for your patrotism and hard work - it's good to know there are folks like you out there. I'm a naturalized citizen - born in Canada - and I wouldn't trade my American citizenship for all the tea in China. My mother grew up in Nazi occupied Holland, and my grandfather (who I'm named after) was a member of the Dutch resistance/underground that was responsible for saving a number of Jews, disrupting German stuff, etc. Both of my mother's parents said "Hell NO"! Keep up the good work my friend, and may God continue to bless you.

Mike you say you are a "mere scribbler".Modesty, yes, mere no!An outstanding call to attention."Oh, Hell No" could be a rallying cry for this time in our country's history.Terrific writing. Thank you.Ray III

I have been a fan for quite awhile now but I must say...your talk at the rally which I have seen in video was kick ass. You walk in the light of truth, legitimate law is on your side and you represent the Constitution. It is therefore not a surprise that you speak with authority.

I just wanted to say "Thank you" for being the name, the voice and now the face of right, just and honest America.

Thank You for going to the rally,I could not attend I was working and could not afford to lose the time.Thank You for your words of inspiration and Thank You for warning them of the course they are on(the government that is)they really don´t understand the Danger that they are in that WE ALL are in. I wrote you a couple of months ago an I asked where I could sign up that I would be one of this Merry Band of 3%´ers, and I asked you WHAT do we wait for. And I thank you for explaining to me why and what WE/I wait for. And I thank you for helping me find the patience to wait till THEY commit the next intolerable act because they will and it won´t be to much longer because now they are beginning to RE-ACT out of fear and causing fear to the public in order to justify their plans. The propaganda machine is up and running,just like Larouche blame others for your actions/crimes. Just the other day when I was traveling,I do that quite a lot,I met a teacher and her husband both liberals.And we had a rather lengthy conversation at one point in the conversation she said something about ¨The Rule of Law¨ I asked her if she meant the same rule of law that was dispensed at Ruby Ridge or the same rule of law that the victims of Waco enjoyed.She and her husband said that people could not negotiate with Guns that they had won the election that this was a Democracy,I Reminded her that this was a Democratic Republic that our fore fathers did all that they could to insure that we would not live in a Democracy and that Greece was a Democracy and was always in war and turmoil. I also informed these two kind people that I, and that there where many like me would not be ¨TAX SLAVES¨for the social programs for people that have no intention ever doing anything with their lives.And that I would not give up not one more of my freedoms not one more of my Rights. And that I would have control of my life no matter the cost.That I was fed-up and would not take it any more and IF it would mean war then FINE, Let The Fires Burn and Let The Blood Flow and May God have Mercy on Us All. Because if or rather when TSHTF there will be no mercy in the streets. None of these things do I want to happen but I can see it coming and I see no way to avoid it,they still think that they know what is best for me and for you and for all of us. I don´t belive the government will change it´s course and the enevenable is soon to happen,you have warned them, we have warned them,and I will not retreat not one more step,come what may,OH HELL NO!!!

Excellent piece!! I'm mostly one of your lurkers, but I read almost everything you've posted in the last 3 years. Don't ALWAYS agree with you, but you are orders of magnitude above your adversaries. This is just about my favorite piece you've ever done. Can't wait to see who's cheerios you piss in next.

Interesting. The southern states have always provided a majority of military recruits. The South, as defined ( currently ) by the U.S. Census Bureau, includes Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. 35% of active duty personnel are recruited from the South and 51% of the total military is based in southern states. This could get real interesting, real fast, if and when ……..

Mike, someone once said that before we can ever restore our constitution ... or even contemplate a revolution to do so ... we need men FIRST that know how to speak of liberty like our founding fathers to instill in the hearts of the people a thirst for that liberty...

If the victor's write history, and if we are successful with The Great Restoration (as we must and will be) your name and your insight, guidance and inspiration will be enshrined in the textbooks of our grandchildren. So I will hope, pray and act.

Hi Mike,What anon. (4/23/10 2:45pm) said,["You walk in the "Light of Truth", "Legitimate Law" is on your side and you represent "The Constitution."] (emphasis added) is only the beginning. Our vigilance must be constant as the onslaught of tyranny will prevail if it can corrupt these elements of Freedom!!

Besides the "III" and "We are everywhere!" I feel the "POWER!" of,"Oh 'HELL'NO!!"especially when hurled back at tyranny with the Truth, Legitimate Law and The Constitution!!!

Bravo! Outstanding speech! Let's hope "they" get the message. The rest of us certainly do!

-- A Southern Yankee

(and a descendant of numerous Revolutionary War Soldiers, a descendant of 5 of Sherman's soldiers who rode on the march to the sea, a great nephew of a soldier who died in France in 1918, a son of a sailor of WW II who arrived at Pearl Harbor while the flames of December 7th were still burning, a nephew of a survivor of Korea who was one of only 2 men to survive an attack that overran his entire Company at the Yalou River, and a cousin of several soldiers who survived, if not thrived, in Viet Nam! Southerners truly get the meaning behind "Oh, HELL No!", a standard Southern expression often uttered as an enemy tries to kill them or their freedom, and that is not just uttered when an enemy tries to stomp defenseless people or animals with jackbooted thuggery.)

If anyone's interested, here's the speech I delivered during the "open mic" time at Gravelly Point:

==========

For the benefit of those members of the media in attendance who might have some misconceptions about the kinds of people who attend Tea Parties or Second Amendment rallies, let me start by telling you all a little bit about myself.

I was born and raised in Connecticut, where my parents scrimped and saved to send their children to private schools. I studied philosophy at Oxford, was a commissioned officer in the Air Force, and am currently working on a PhD in Computer Science. I'm not a religious man, and I drive a Toyota Prius. Not because I give a damn about my "carbon footprint," by the way, but because I'd rather give my money to the Japanese than to Hugo Chavez and the Saudis.

But I'm also passionate about liberty and I'm deeply concerned about the accelerating erosion of individual rights and the growth of governmental power beyond its Constitutional limits. I'm also following the advice of President Obama, who encouraged his followers to 'get in the faces' of those who disagree with them. Many people, like Rachel Maddow, are offended that I choose to exercise my rights, so I'm also here to poke them in the eye, figuratively speaking.

For those who accuse us of hypocrisy or racism for supposedly waiting until now to speak out against government malfeasance, I feel compelled to remind you that many of us made it quite clear that we weren't particularly happy about proposed amnesty for illegal aliens, certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act, or the first round of corporate bail-outs, all of which took place during the Bush administration.

I'd also like to remind my fellow freedom-loving Americans just who the real threats to liberty are. They are not the elected officials across the Potomac, but rather, the voters who sent them there. As long as the voting public continues to elect politicians who trample the Constitution and bankrupt our Republic, that's exactly what we'll get. The Declaration of Independence recognizes that our rights do not come from government, and neither our legislators nor our fellow citizens have the power to vote those unalienable rights away.

Finally, let me say to everyone that a peaceable, law-abiding, armed citizen (such as myself) is not a threat to anyone, unless his life, liberty, or property is threatened.

What Does It Mean To Be A "Three Percenter"?

These four principles -- moral strength, physical readiness, no first use of force and no targeting of innocents -- are the hallmarks of the Three Percent ideal. Anyone who cannot accept them as a self-imposed discipline in the fight to restore the Founders' Republic should find something else to do and cease calling themselves a "Three Percenter."

No, I'm NOT Charlie. I am ARMED.

Edmund Burke reconsidered in the light of 20th Century funeral pyres.

"Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it." -- Kurt Hofmann.

The Nyberg Battle Flag of the Three Percent

This time we are ALL Davidians. This time, we are all Jews, Kulaks, "counter-revolutionists" and "enemies of the state." We are now a despised minority within a country no longer our own.BUT WE WILL NOT BE DESPISED.

My Blog List

Advice on child rearing from my son.

Everyone should grow up with simulated equipment from a heavy weapons platoon. It gives you a more well rounded education and an appreciation for the finer things in life. -- Sergeant Matthew Vanderboegh, United States Army.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.